


Mercy is a question

by WahlBuilder



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, M/M, Post-Canon, Vignette, set Abundance on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 21:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17475254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Viktor is spared. And he doesn't understand.





	Mercy is a question

**Author's Note:**

> Connected to [Responsibility](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17393531).

Vik looks so strange, without the armor, the gray. The brace. _Breakable_. Slouched, stooped.

The most striking thing about him, for Anton, is a black leather jacket. Viktor, somehow, has kept it for _fifteen years_. Shadow.

Anton’s gaze catches on the mended tears from the explosion.

Shadow. Shadow.

“Why, Tosha? Why… spare me?” Viktor looks up.

Anton wants to take his face in his palms, to stroke his cheeks. Wants Vik to be angry with him. Instead, he says, “You know it is not sparing.”

“You must have sacrificed so much for it…”

He huffs. “No. No, you wanted a fair trial, and you had it. I didn’t bribe, blackmail or threaten anyone. Just did my research.” He looks away, runs a hand over his head. “You know, my friend has funny views…”

“Your friend the Prince?”

“Yes.”

“You are friends with the Prince of Noctis.”

He smiles. Yes. Difficult to believe. “He wasn’t the Prince when we met, but yes. It’s a…” He shrugs. “Actually, it’s not that long a story, and I’m friends with Ian Mancer, too—and you are the son of—”

Viktor tenses up.

He sighs. Shadow. Shadow. “Not important. My Noctian friend, you see, believes in second, third, fourth chances. I think… Maybe it’s only Abundance, see. But in Abundance, you get a chance only if you are born high. Everyone else is fucked.”

“I had a chance to change things, Tosha,” Viktor says quietly. “I believed what I was doing was right, even if my methods were not.”

“But it was not right, and methods are _important_.” Anton presses his lips tight. “Just look at the Vory.” He sits down on the ottoman, and, after a moment of hesitation, takes Viktor’s hand. It’s warmer than usual. “They _tortured_ you, Vitya.”

“I deserved it.”

“Maybe so. But it wasn’t _right_.” He squeezes Vik’s hand. “Turn on your brains for a moment. They found a convenient scapegoat in you and your top officers. The war is lost and there is no way to twist that fact honorably; the OA is gaining traction, there are protests on the streets because rationing is bad and people know now that, while in the current situation rationing is a desperate measure, _before_ it was artificial scarcity. The technomancers are free, and will remain so. The trade through the traveling merchants is ruined. The seats in the Assembly are shaking — and here were _you_ , my friend! You, the most prominent figure after the Dowser, the feared ASC Director — now with corruption, torture, and whichever else conspiracies they could pile up on you. I am sorry, dearest, but Mother Abundance was intending to fuck you one last time.”

Viktor twitches. “By the Shadow, Tosha, I would have lived without ‘mother’ and ‘fuck’ in one sentence.”

“I’m a simple man.”

“No, you are not.”

“Doesn’t matter. They needed something _big_ , Vitya. You know how it is. It is the Dowser’s Day parade all over again. Flashy, with guns booming. To distract people from real problems, to avert the blame from themselves.”

“I still don’t understand why _you_ did it.”

Well, here it is. “What would your execution or imprisonment bring? Not justice to those you wronged. Just a flashy way to show the people that the government is ‘good’ and ‘just’ and punishes crime.”

Vik is silent for a long time — but he doesn’t take his hand away, and Anton thinks it’s good.

“Is it because I… repent?”

“Well, otherwise I would have shot you myself,” he tells Vik seriously. He would have come for Vik himself — for _Colonel Viktor Watcher_ — but there was that hope… That tiny hope that the man he fell in love with all those years ago, a terrible, terribly wronged man, was still there somewhere.

And no way he’d give _anyone_ for Mother Abundance to cover her ass with.

“Vitya… They _tortured_ you. Your heart stopped several times, your liver was failing, you could barely breathe — and they didn’t stop. No matter what you did, no _matter_ ,” he emphasizes when Vik takes in a breath, “what you did… That was not justice. And they didn’t want justice. They wanted to fuck you until nothing was left.”

Vik’s face twists. “By the Shadow, Tosha, _please_.”

“I’m right.” He squeezes Vik’s hand again, covers it with his other hand. “You don’t deserve it: their ‘justice’, and this chance, too. Just like I don’t deserve many things I was given — like your freedom. But it is what you get, and you have to live with it and decide what to do with it.”

“I don’t know what to do, Tosha.” Vik frowns, as though trying to solve all the problems of the world.

“You’ll find out. You have the time,” he promises to Vik. Now, they have the time.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess I'll just keep trying to write them out of my system.
> 
> The jacket Vik has is from [Lost Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15835632).


End file.
